2026 / Dir. Destin Daniel Cretton
Rating: 4/5
Watch if you like: that feeling when you let a wizard cast a magic spell that makes everyone forget who you are and you end up living alone in an attic, your only companion an AI as you succumb to the mutant arachnid DNA that once gave you purpose, and wonder what is to come as the spiderwebs spill forth from your wrists and cocoon you to sleep.
While Tom Holland’s Spider-Man has been one of the most beloved characters in the MCU, the films have often felt too trapped in the Marvel machine. This Spider-Man rarely gets to be “your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man” and instead often feels like Tony Stark Jr. forced to deal with intergalactic crises or the multiverse collapsing in on itself. The first two movies literally saw him battle two different villains motivated by their own set of Tony Stark-related grievances.
But thanks to a five-year break between films and the soft reset that occurred at the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home, Spider-Man finally feels like Spider-Man, and better for it.
When we last saw Spider-Holland, he decided to wipe the memory of Peter Parker from the world’s memory so that the entire universe wouldn’t collapse—a decision that Spider-Man: Brand New Day bravely sticks with rather than immediately retconning. To protect his loved ones, Peter has kept an eye on his former love, MJ (Zendaya), and best friend, Ned (Jacob Batalon), from afar—i.e. stalks them on Instagram—but never told them about what happened. While they go off to college, Peter lives in a dilapidated attic apartment and spends four years or so essentially just being Spider-Man.
We see this through an extended opening montage as Spider-Man battles a variety of villains and becomes beloved by New Yorkers thanks to the massive reduction in crime; this is set to TV on the Radio’s “Wolf Like Me,” which was so overused in movie and TV montages in the 2000s that I guess enough time has passed for it to come out of retirement. Peter is allowed to mature and grow and not feel like Spider-Boy anymore, a feeling that echoes through the whole movie.
Due to film delays from Tom Holland’s role in The Odyssey, Brand New Day was able to land Short Term 12 and Shang-Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton and start filming with a solidified script rather than making it up as they went along or doing endless reshoots, and the extra “effort” shows. Sure, there are still some shoehorned cameos, uneven CGI, and a bloated runtime that are hallmarks of the MCU, but they’re offset by a fully formed story with real emotional stakes and excellent performances.
Cretton also brought in his longtime cinematographer Brett Pawlak to make Brand New Day actually look fantastic. There’s rich contrast, deep shadows, and genuinely creative filmmaking on display. There’s extra attention paid to the web-swinging and, while there aren’t a ton of fight sequences, they have the energy and creativity that made Shang-Chi a lot of fun. A fight scene with the ninja-esque group The Hand that’s seen in the trailers has acrobatics and switches visual perspectives when Spider-Man is hanging upside down. These sequences are more grounded than the animated Spider-Verse movies, sure, but still showcase that superhero movies have infinitely more possibilities than what we’ve settled for.
The best parts of Brand New Day aren’t the action scenes, however, but the performances and how they shape the story. Holland truly owns this character, and we go on an emotional journey with him as he struggles to find Peter again after years of just being Spider-Man both internally and externally as his Arachnid DNA starts taking more and more control over his body. When he does eventually meet MJ again, the scenes are genuinely powerful and complex; Holland and Zendaya have unbelievable chemistry (you’d hope so considering they’re married) and the only tedium in the movie can spring from wanting to see them onscreen again.
Likewise is the “mystery character” played by Sadie Sink, who has been revealed on the internet at this point, but I won’t spoil if you’re not terminally online. The actress seems ubiquitous at this point thanks to her role on Stranger Things, but, in actuality, doesn’t have a lot of big screen credits to her name. Here she cements what drew Stranger Things fans to her with a raw, magnetic performance that acts as a double of Peter’s journey to learn how to balance his human and superhero sides.
Who would have thought that the fourth movie in the MCU’s Spider-Man saga would not only be its best, but chart a path forward for the struggling cinematic universe? If they can keep making the between-movie connections more deliberate, focus on character growth and fleshed-out villains, and let talented people create polished products, fans are going to turn out again. At the very least, for the first time, I’m excited for what’s next for Tom Holland’s Spider-Man adventures.
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